Tag:

Nashua NH

Elphage Daignault architect of the Sentinelle Affair

The Sentinelle Affair: Keeping The French in Franco American

In 1919, the Federation of Canadian Catholic Churches in America decided to tackle the need for better schools. Catholic parish schools adequately served younger students. But for high-school age students, the existing institutions were deemed inadequate.

The Federation intended to change that with a series of state-of-the-art high schools, and it would start in Woonsocket, R.I. At times, Franco Americans made up more than three-quarters of the Woonsocket population, many drawn from Canada by the vibrant mill economy.

Elphage Daignault, architect of the Sentinelle Affair, and his wife

The Providence Catholic Diocese unveiled plans for the Mont Saint Charles Academy in Woonsocket with fanfare. The Franco-American population embraced this proposal for a fine new school. But as fundraising for the school began, rumors began to circulate. The new school would conduct classes in English only. French would only be taught as a separate language course.

The decision to push Franco-American students through an English-speaking school touched a nerve and ignited the Sentinelle Affair. The Sentinellists decided to preserve the French language in the church, community AND schools..

At the center of the Sentinelle Affair stood Elphege J Daignault. As the controversy raged from 1923 through 1929, Daignault earned a reputation as a savior of French-Canadian culture – or an agent of Satan, depending on your point of view.

Daignault – born in Woonsocket in 1879 — studied at college in Montreal, Boston and New York. From 1922 to 1936 he served as president of the Canado-American Association.

Elphege Daignault and the Roots of the Sentinelle Affair

mont-saint-charles-academy-which sparked the sentinelle-affair.

Mont Saint Charles Academy Postcard

In the 1920s, the French language was under assault in states around the country. Many enacted English-only laws to discourage immigrants from retaining their native tongues in their new home in America.

Italian communities had founded the Knights of Columbus, closely aligned with the Catholic Church, to defend against attacks on Italian culture. The Franco-American community followed up with the Order of the Crusaders to serve the same purpose. A secret society, it worked to counter anti-Canadian bias.

By the time of the Sentinelle Affair, Elphege Daignault had already made himself a thorn in the side of the Providence Diocese of the Catholic Church. In 1914, he led a group that forced Bishop William Hickey to remove the French Marist Fathers from the Sainte-Anne Parish of Woonsocket and replace them with a local, native Franco American.

The plans for the English-only high school outraged Daignault and his supporters. A lawyer, judge and politician, Daignault opened up two lines of attack on the plan. He sued in state courts, accusing the church of improper use of funds by soliciting donations from Franco-American Catholics. The funds were used for projects that not only didn’t specifically serve their community, but actively undermined the community by attempting to snuff out the French language and culture.

Daignault argued the church method of pooling all donations did not comply with the terms under which it solicited them.

He took a second tack, filing appeals with the Vatican asking it to intervene in the matter and to halt the Anglicization of church schools.

La Sentinelle is Published

In addition to trying to win his case in the courts of the Vatican and Rhode Island, Daignault also decided to turn to the court of public opinion. To promote his point, Daignault took an active role in running a Woonsocket newspaper: La Sentinelle.

While many Franco-Americans supported Daignault’s views, they generally were not as hostile and direct while challenging the church.

He accused his enemies of murdering the French culture and of operating deceitfully.

He also turned the fight into an ethnocentric attack on Irish-American Catholics, a prominent force in the American Catholic Church. Irish clergy, he contended, were “national assassins.” And he called their French Catholic supporters traitors to their people. The church had embraced the unstated goal of Irish domination. Daignault also mocked the Irish for embracing the language of their oppressors – the English.

Daignault’s megaphone grew as newspapers in Holyoke, Mass. and Nashua, N.H. echoed his editorials, which he sometimes signed and sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Blaise Juliet.

Opposition to Daignault

Daignault’s voice was not the only opinion found in the Franco-American press. His critics voiced their opposition in newspapers in Manchester, N.H., as well as Holyoke, Woonsocket and Lawrence in Massachusetts.

They accused Daignault of trying to foment a modern crusade and creating controversies where none existed. He vilified his enemies, they charged, by challenging their patriotism simply because they disagreed with him.

Even many who agreed with Daignault could not support his vitriolic attacks on the church.

Taking the Fight to New Hampshire

Far from backing down, Daignault took his campaign to Manchester, N.H. In that state the language issue also simmered as Bishop George Albert Guertin worked to modernize New Hampshire’s Catholic schools. Guertin also planned to limit the speaking of French to just language classes.

Daignault attacked popular Franco-American priest P.J. Ernest Devoy, an advocate for education. Devoy, he charged, was bilingual but never used French in his official capacity. Daignault called it a “diabolical” practice.

But there was growing weakness in Daignault’s campaign. He could draw a sizable crowd to rallies, but regular Catholics were wary of his attacks on the church.

Then the Franco-American Catholic Federation in 1924, at its annual meeting at Willimantic, condemned Daignault’s tactics.

He lost his court challenges in the Rhode Island courts. His requests to the Vatican yielded no support. Finally, the machinery of the Catholic Church stopped tolerating his dissent.

In 1928, the Vatican declared it would hear no more from Daignault. The church authorized Bishop Hickey to excommunicate Daignault and 62 of his followers. Daignault then attempted two more Hail Marys. The Rhode Island Supreme Court threw out his final lawsuit. And when he sought legal protection within the Vatican courts against excommunication, he failed.

Finally, in January of 1929, Bishop Hickey delivered a message to Daignault and his supporters. If they did not renounce their position and repent before Easter, he would then bar them from entering any Roman Catholic Church.

Daignault caved. He publicly promised to seek forgiveness from the church authorities. He also apologized so the church would readmit him. Hickey called it the “greatest consolation I have had since the unfortunate movement was launched.”

The End of the Sentinelle Affair

The church defeated Daignault, but it did not completely silence him. He continued writing articles urging Franco-Americans to retain their culture. Then in 1933, a stroke slowed him substantially, and in 1937 he died of a heart attack.

This story updated in 2022.

Thanks to:

The Sentinel Affair (1924-1929) and Activist Survival: The Franco-American Experience in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, by Richard Sorrell. The Sentinelle Affair: A Study in Multilingual Language Practices, by Jason Peters. Elphège J. Daignault et le mouvement sentinelliste à Manchester, New Hampshire, by Robert B. Perrault. And Rhode Island and Connecticut newspapers.

Image: Mme et M. Elphège Daignault : d’après la photographie originale de l’agence photographique Pacific and Atlantic.

0 comment 251 views

The Brahmin Rough Riders of New England

Some people believe that the Rough Riders were almost all cowboys from out West. After all, it had earned the nickname “The Cowboy Regiment.”

But that wasn’t entirely the case, as you shall see. Brahmins from New England with refined backgrounds also joined the Rough Riders.

Men from every New England state volunteered for Teddy Roosevelt’s U.S. 1^st Volunteer Cavalry, better known as the Rough Riders. Massachusetts had as many as 25. As a matter of fact, the actual commander of the unit, Leonard Wood, hailed from New Hampshire. Frederic Remington featured Woodbury Kane from Rhode Island in his famous painting of the immortal charge up San Juan Hill.

Col. Roosevelt and the Rough Riders on top of San Juan Hill.

Roosevelt had four recruiting stations out West, in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and the Oklahoma/Indian Territories. He had vast experience in the West and knew the cowboys already knew how to ride and shoot. But Roosevelt knew another target-rich area full of ready-for-action men: His wealthy, pedigreed friends throughout New York and New England.

Roosevelt put out the word. They responded in droves from polo clubs, boxing clubs, duck blinds, steeplechase courses, yacht clubs, Ivy League athletic fields and glee clubs. Many had graduated from Harvard.

One Rough Rider, James McClintock, who hailed from California, said they were in it for the adventure.

The Rough Riders are the stuff of legend, having generated a movie, a television show and, of course, a President. They were, however, one of the shortest lived units in American military history. They only existed for four months and 13 days before they disbanded.

Rhode Island Rough Riders

Woodbury Kane, Newport;Joseph S. Stevens, Newport; Norman Maxwell, Newport; Charles Hatch, Newport; Joseph F. Flynn, Cranston.

Rough Rider Woodbury Kane

Woodbury Kane, a classmate of Teddy Roosevelt’s at Harvard, was born in Newport, a cousin of John Jacob Astor IV. A noted yachtsman, he belonged to the New York Yacht Club and served on the crew of the Columbia in the 1899 America’s Cup Race. He was also a noted big game hunter.

After graduation, he lived the life of a bon vivant in Newport and New York. In April 1898 he and other East Coast friends joined the U.S. 1^st Volunteer Cavalry.

After enlistment, he, William Tiffany and other East Coast friends donated two $7,500 Colt machine guns to the unit. When the unit expanded to a thousand men he received a lieutenant’s commission.

While serving in the Rough Riders he was always noted for being dressed to a T, no matter the conditions. While leading K Troop in the charge on San Juan Hill, he was wounded in the forearm. Kane was awarded a citation for gallantry and promoted to captain.

He spent the rest of his life living the life of a dandy until a heart attack cut him down at the age of 46. His obituary noted he left no children, but he did leave his beloved polo pony.

Vermont

Ira A. Hill, Grand Isle; Wallace Batchelder, Chester.

Wallace Batchelder graduated from Chester Academy in Chester, Vt., before enlisting in the Rough Riders. He later fought in the Philippines under General Wood. After his service he returned to Vermont, where he became a lawyer and chaired the state’s committee to elect Roosevelt President of the United States in 1904. He later broke with Roosevelt, who in 1912 sent him a telegram telling him not to support any candidate who didn’t support Roosevelt. Batchelder replied he wouldn’t support Roosevelt.

New Hampshire Rough Riders

Dudley S. Dean, Laconia; Walter F. Hickey, Nashua; Leonard Wood, Winchester.

Leonard Wood was the actual commander of the Rough Riders; Teddy Roosevelt was his second in command.

A descendant of four Mayflower passengers, he trained as a physician at Harvard Medical School. He served as a major general in the Army. When he came to command the U.S. 1^st Volunteer Cavalry in Cuba, he was a seasoned Indian fighter in the West and had already been awarded the Medal of Honor. After the Spanish-American War, he served as Governor-General of the Philippines and contended for the Republican nomination for President in 1920.

Dean was an All American football quarterback for Harvard from 1888 to 1890. He participated in the charge on San Juan Hill. That was not to be his last military adventure. During World War II, he served as a lieutenant colonel In the U.S. Army Air Force. He was the executive producer of the play Winged Victory, which ran from November 1943 to May 1944. He lived until the age of 79, passing away in 1950.

Dudley Dean, football star

Dudley’s son John H. Dean played football for Harvard too. At Harvard, he befriended Joseph P. Kennedy and they spent summers together at Cohassett, Mass.

Maine

Guy Muncie, Calais; Harrison J. Holt, Portland; Frederick C. Wesley, Bangor.

Harrison Holt graduated from Phillips Andover and Harvard. Upon his Harvard graduation in 1898 he enlisted with Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. After the war and some business ventures in Mexico he joined the New York Globe and Commercial Advertiser as a reporter. Later in life he wrote novels and detective stories, including The Calendared Isles, a Romance of Casco Bay (read it here) and Midnight at Mears House.

Connecticut

Edward C. Hall, Wallingford.

Unlike most of the Ivy League Rough Riders, Edward Hall graduated from Yale, not Harvard. Upon graduation in 1894, he went to work for Westinghouse and did a brief stint at a North Dakota ranch before enlisting with the Rough Riders. After the war he joined General Electric in Lynn, Mass., then transferred to the Schenectady office, where he died in 1912.

Massachusetts

Harry A. Curtis, Boston; Prescott H. Belknap, Brookline; John D. Hubbell, Boston; Rufus K. Thomas, Boston; Wellman H. Saunders, Salem; John P. Gardner, Boston; Guy H. Scull, Boston; Harry A. Davis, Boston; Francis B. Crowninshield, Marblehead; William H. Mitchell, Salem; Winslow Clark, Milton; Edward F. Donnelly, Boston; Michael F. Hogan; William T. James, Fitchburg; Arthur M. Leroy, Boston; Raymond Morse, Springfield; Edward A. O’Brien, Charlestown; William J. Tudor, Boston; Harry C. White, Somerville.

Francis Boardman Crowninshield, another Harvard graduate, went on to become a noted international yachtsman. He fought with Troop K of the Rough Riders and took part in the charge up San Juan Hill. In 1900, he married Louise DuPont from the famous chemical family. In 1911, he won the King of Spain’s Cup in Spain, now among his many trophies at the Eastern Yacht Club in Marblehead, Mass.

Rough Riders. Image courtesy New York Public Library.

About the author of this story: Leo Caisse of East Providence, R.I., passed away in 2020. He published the book, The Civilian Conservation Corps: A Guide to Their Works in Rhode Island. He also published a number of historical articles, including Ears On the World in America in World War II Magazine, October, 2017. Leo earned a B.A. and M.A. in American History from Providence College and he lived in East Providence, R.I.

This story updated in 2022.

0 comment 349 views

Russian Dressing Invented in … New Hampshire?

The news media delved deep (well, deepish) into the history of Russian dressing in 2017 after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer mentioned the condiment in a news conference.

Sean Spicer

“If the president puts Russian dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that’s a Russia connection,” said Spicer (who, by the way, is from Barrington, R.I.) on March 28.

The Washington Post had already covered the story two years earlier, but not in the context of statecraft. “A Nashua grocer named James E. Colburn invented the spread in 1924,” reported the Post. The newspaper cited the 1927 text from the book New Hampshire Resources, Attractions and Its People, a History, by Hobart Pillsbury.

Colburn sold the salad dressing to “retailers and hotels across the country,” earning “wealth on which he was enabled to retire.”

Today, Russian dressing has given way to its milder cousin, Thousand Island dressing, and has largely disappeared, the Post reported.

Russian Dressing

It was actually around long before James Colburn had his brainstorm.

Food historians agree it is a creamy vinaigrette, but they don’t agree on much else. Some evidence shows Russians knew about creamy vinaigrettes in the 19th century, but they got it from the French.

Mixed green salads go back as far as the ancient Greeks. Dinner salads were popular in the Renaissance. What we now call chef’s salads — composed salads with layers of ingredients — appeared in the 18th century. Then they were called Salmagundi.

Russian dressing on a cheeseburger with grilled onions at Bill’s Place in San Francisco.

The earliest reference to Russian dressing, according to the Food Timeline, is from a 1911 menu for the Gridiron Club. Salads with Russian dressing were fashionable before World War I.

But what was in Russian dressing?

An early version of Larousse Gastronomique claims it consisted of mayonnaise, tinted pink with poached coral and the pulverized shell of a lobster, and seasoned with salt and caviar. According to restaurant critic Craig Claiborne, it contained mayonnaise, chili sauce, horseradish, grated onion and caviar.

But according to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink, caviar is an unlikely ingredient. It probably got its name because of the Russian love of pickles, the encyclopedia says.

Today, Russian dressing generally consists of mayonnaise, chili sauce or ketchup, relish, horseradish and paprika.

Nashua Roots

It’s quite certain Nashua’s James Colburn didn’t put caviar in the salad dressing he bottled and sold under the name “Russian.”

He worked in a meat market until he opened his own wholesale grocery and meat business in 1906. While running that business he hit upon the idea of a Russian salad dressing. He was able to retire on the proceeds.

His biographer wrote, “As he rests on his laurels, he is conscious of having done his part well in conferring a blessing upon the people who have learned the art of eating well.”

The Boston Globe’s Household Department provided the following recipe for the condiment on Jan. 25, 1914:

Get a large bowl and mixer, then beat yolk of three eggs, one teaspoon of mustard and one of salt, a dash of paprika and 1/2 cup of vinegar. Mix up well and, while mixing, add 1 pinch olive oil and continue mixing until thick. Strain one-half bottle of chili sauce through a cloth and mix what remains with the dressing. Add some chopped chives and a dash of Worcestershire sauce and the dressing is complete.

Image: By rick – Flickr: Bill’s Place burger with grilled onions, cheese and russian dressing, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19068595.

This story last updated in 2022.

2 comments 600 views

Fortunate Son: The Madness of John Stark

For nearly 200 years, from the beginnings of the nation, the Stark name, beginning with John Stark, was the gold standard of New Hampshire. The family fortunes followed the arc of the new Republic from farming to industrialization to railroads and finance. Then in 1922, things took a dramatic turn.

John Stark’s Descendants

General John Stark was the hero of the Battle of Bennington. John’s son Frederick served as superintendent of the Union Locks and Canal Company of Manchester. Frederick also worked as a surveyor, judge and owner of a store that supplied the river men. He was the most influential businessman in the blossoming mill town of Manchester when he died in 1861.

Frederick’s son George became a surveyor and railroad builder. He was superintendent of the Nashua & Lowell Railroad and later the Boston & Lowell. He belonged to a six-man committee chosen to turn around the moribund Northern Pacific Railroad. A general in the New Hampshire militia, George was an essential recruiter for the army at the outbreak of the Civil War. By his death in 1892, he had built a fine home in Nashua. Though successful, he avoided any display of his wealth.

George’s son John Stark followed in his father’s footsteps As a civil engineer, he worked for the railroads. But by 1859, the Starks realized that finance was the blossoming industry of the day. Together they established a New York bank, J. F. Stark. John Stark would become a major force in Nashua as president of the New Hampshire Improvement Company and Pennichuck Water Works, with real estate and insurance interests. He served for 22 years as a library trustee and set up a country home in Hollis. He died in 1920.

George Stark

Then there was John’s son George. Few people in New Hampshire knew of him. Schooled partially at Andover, he had left the state as a young man, living in Boston, Atlantic City and Philadelphia. What little was known about him was that he worked in advertising. Those who knew John Stark , however, knew how George had disappointed him. And just after John died in 1920, the entire state found out just how much of a disappointment he was.

General John Stark

In John’s will, he left his son an income that would come from the investment profits from $50,000 (roughly $625,000 in today’s dollars). George bridled at the amount and vowed, “the exiled son of New Hampshire returns to his native soil to claim the inheritance that is his.” He announced his intention to sue to break his father’s will. The state waited in anticipation until June of 1922 when the trial over the Stark fortune began.

As celebrity trials go, the Stark case started out rather mildly, retelling the details of George’s early days. His father had married Eva Barr in 1873, and the couple had two children. Eva died in 1875, the same year George was born, and John married Eva’s sister Carrie, who raised the children.

Downhill Slide

There were few signs of acrimony in their early relations. That changed as George grew older. He had attended Andover, but stole money that his father sent him to pay bills and used it to party in Boston. Eventually, the school told John to come remove his incorrigible son.

Free from school, George turned to alcohol in a big way. He hopped from Canada to Boston on a non-stop binge. Frequent letters arrived at John’s home, asking him to pay the bills that young George had run up, sometimes fleeing ahead of paying. John wrote checks — for hotels, doctors, dentists and more – all to keep George out of jail.

John was trustee for a $14,000 legacy that George’s grandfather had left to him. When he turned the money over to George, he refused to take any fee for managing the funds. He begged young George to preserve the capital and use the modest income to launch himself on a successful career. George ran through the money, buying fancy furniture for an apartment, and travelling.

Along the way, George had married. Alcohol, especially absinthe, had pushed him into insanity. He ended up in a sanitarium for the insane. There, he met Alice Whitney. The two began a relationship and George moved in with Alice – well before his divorce from his first wife.

George credited Alice with helping him stay sober. But Alice had a difficult personality. When she and George visited New Hampshire, John cautioned the woman that his son could not support himself, much less a wife. The couple married anyway. Alice attacked John and smeared his first wife, claiming that she didn’t believe John was George’s real father. By the time they left, John confided to a friend he could no longer stand their company. He had dropped them off at the train station and left them to wait in foul weather.

Living Large

George and Alice moved to Atlantic City to improve Alice’s health. There they lived lavishly, renting expensive rooms and dressing in fine clothes. George launched himself into an advertising agency in Philadelphia, but never managed to pay his debts. By the time of his father’s death he had returned to Boston and was staying in a sanitarium for treatment of a nervous breakdown.

George wrote to his aunt — who was also his stepmother — with a plea for more money: “All I want is enough to take care of wife and self. Feel as though I am not going to live long.”

The reply was abrupt and harsh: “You were provided for far more generously than you deserved after 25 years of demand upon him.”

At trial, Carrie expanded on her late husband’s attitudes: “My husband worked hard and his belief was that the children of the wealthy should work.” John, she said, had drawn his will carefully and thoughtfully. He left George a modest income by design.

After two weeks, George produced a surprise witness. A nurse who had been fired by his aunt testified that the widow was more involved in creating the will than she let on. Then the blockbuster: George produced doctors to testify that John, his father, was insane and incapable of drafting a will.

John Stark, Reputation Upheld

John’s lawyers then blasted back at George: “He comes back to New Hampshire not to claim his rightful heritage, but to slander his father. He stands on the very brink of his grave and points his menacing finger at his father who cannot reply.”

A line of Nashua business leaders took the stand to testify that John Stark was not crazy. Among those who testified was Harry Gregg, father of future governor Hugh Gregg.

The attorneys presented a seemingly never-ending list of bills and pawn tickets that John paid off to get his son out of debt. And finally, they presented arguments that the doctors George had called upon had diagnosed his father as insane without ever meeting him in person.

At the end of the trial, the jury quickly declared that John Stark’s will was valid, dismissing George’s contention that his aunt had manipulated his insane father.

This story was updated in 2021.

4 comments 358 views

6 New Deal Projects Still in Use

The New Deal put tens of millions of people to work and changed the landscape in every New England city and town. It put sidewalks on streets, bridges over rivers, hiking trails in forests, seawalls on beaches and public buildings in cities and towns. Much of the New Deal legacy is still in use and still visible today.

President Franklin Roosevelt insisted relief programs provide jobs and not handouts. Over eight years, the Works Progress Administration alone employed more than 8 million Americans. The Civilian Conservation Corps put 3 million young men to work at a monthly wage of $30 — $25 of which had to be sent home.

Roosevelt intended to revive the ideals of civil society, collective governance, and social well-being. He took a special interest in building post offices because they were so rooted in the life of a community. He insisted his home post office in Hyde Park, N.Y., be modeled after one of the oldest houses in the town. His friend and relative Olin Dows painted the murals, which depicted both Roosevelt and Dows ancestors who lived in the Hudson Valley.

Southington Post Office Mural

Southington Post Office lobby. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

In Connecticut, the U.S. Treasury Department built or expanded more than 25 post offices and paid for more than 25 post office murals between 1934 and 1943. (Click here for a list of New Deal projects in Connecticut.)

Typically, the government oversaw the way federal buildings were embellished. But during the Depression, artists were struggling along with the rest of the work force. During the New Deal, government for the first time aimed to support and encourage artists. Such noted artists as Reginald Marsh, Rockwell Kent, Philip Guston and Ben Shahn were hired to paint post office murals.

Artists vied for mural contracts by submitting sketches in national and regional competitions. The winners were chosen for their skill and for the way they showed ordinary citizens, their community and their history.

A goal of the post office mural program was to link people to an earlier time and place when Americans faced great obstacles and overcome them.

In the East Hartford post office a mural illustrated “The Stop of Hooker’s Band in East Hartford before Crossing the River.” In New Haven, it was the “Pursuit of the Regicides.” Torrington remembered its native son in “Episodes in the Life of John Brown.”

Other Connecticut post offices depicted the industrial or agricultural heritage of their communities. In the Southington Post Office lobby, a mural shows the town’s industry, agriculture and landmarks. It was painted by Ann Hunt Spencer, who studied art in Paris and received the Kosciuszko Foundation’s scholarship in 1937 for study and travel in Poland.

The post office is at 125 Main Street in Southington. For a list of WPA post office murals in the United States, click here.

Acadia National Park

CCC boys building Otter Creek Road in Acadia. Photo courtesy National Park Service.

By the time of the Great Depression, Acadia National Park was nearly 20 years old. It was mostly overgrown and inaccessible. Its facilities were few and far between, not nearly enough for the park’s many visitors.

Superintendent George Dorr dreamed of improving the park, and he saw his chance in the Civilian Conservation Corps. He asked Roosevelt for a camp at Acadia. Eventually some 3,000 poor boys, mostly from Maine, came to Acadia for six months or longer to work as part of Roosevelt’s ‘Tree Army.’

The CCC ran three camps in and around Acadia National Park. They opened new trails and improved old ones, planted thousands of trees, made fire roads, fought fires, built footbridges and constructed two campgrounds, Blackwoods and Seawall. They built Ocean Drive, which loops around the park with stunning views of the coast and opened hiking trails to Echo Lake, Long Pond and Beech Cliff.

To find other New Deal projects in Maine, click here.

Cape Cod Bridges

The Sagamore Bridge.

The Cape Cod Canal celebrated its grand opening in 1914. Its private owners hoped to cash in by charging tolls for shipping traffic. Mariners avoided the canal, though, because three drawbridges over the canal were such a navigational hazard. The canal enterprise lost money.

The U.S. government eventually took over the Cape Cod Canal. In 1933, the Army Corps of Engineers began building the Sagamore and Bourne highway bridges in the same spots as earlier bridges.

The Corps hired Fay, Spofford & Thorndike to design and supervise construction of the bridges so they would allow large oceangoing ships to pass below.

The Boston architectural firm of Cram and Ferguson was hired to design the appearance of the bridges. The firm’s principal, Ralph Adams Cram, pioneered the Gothic Revival Style of architecture in buildings such as The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, Emmanuel Church in Newport, R.I., the Princeton University Chapel and many buildings at Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He is honored with a feast day in the Episcopal Church of the United States.

The identical bridges were both opened on June 22, 1935. A miniature copy of the bridges was used for the John Greenleaf Whittier Bridge, which connects I-95 from Newburyport to Amesbury.

On a summer day, the two bridges might together carry 130,000 vehicles.

Manchester Airport Terminal

The Manchester Airport terminal and tower.

The New Deal brought dozens of improvements to New Hampshire: the Hampton Beach seawall, town halls in Dover and Nashua, the Concord library, Cannon Mountain Ski Resort, schools, post offices and bridges.

The New Deal also brought to Londonderry in 1937 an Art Deco style airport terminal and control tower. The building evolved into the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, now the fourth biggest airport in New England. It carries more than 2 million passengers a year.

The 1937 terminal continued in service until the airport was expanded in 1995. The terminal was slated for demolition, but saved by the airport, the New Hampshire Aviation Historical Society, the City of Manchester and the Town of Londonderry. It is now home to the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire.

You can visit the historic terminal on Friday and Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm and on Sunday from 1 pm to 4 pm

McCoy Stadium

McCoy Stadium scoreboard.

Thomas P. McCoy was the colorful mayor of Pawtucket who wore shamrock-patterned ties and a red rose in his lapel. The undisputed head of the city’s Democratic Party, he was nicknamed ‘The Prince of Pawtucket.’

McCoy used his political clout to get a baseball stadium from the New Deal. He laid the cornerstone on Nov. 3, 1940.

McCoy had chosen swampland called Hammond Pond as a building site, which guaranteed years of employment for hundreds of workers. Vehicles and equipment were swallowed overnight in the bottomless muck. In the end, the stadium cost more to build than the assessed value of Fenway Park.

In 1945, Mayor McCoy died suddenly. The stadium was named after him and dedicated to his memory in 1946.

McCoy Stadium struggled for years, intermittently attracting farm teams for the Boston Braves, the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox. In 1977, a Canadian businessman named Ben Mondor bought the Pawtucket Red Sox out of bankruptcy and visited McCoy stadium. “What a dump,” he said. He turned around the team and the stadium, making it a family-friendly place where Girl Scouts camped overnight on the outfield, children got free medical checkups and fans saw their birthdays and weddings celebrated on the Jumbotron.

Future Hall of Famers have played at McCoy. In 1981 the Pawtucket Red Sox played the longest game in baseball history against the Rochester Red Wings. Wade Boggs and Cal Ripken, Jr., played against each other in the 33-inning game.

McCoy Stadium was renovated in 1992 and expanded to seat 10,000 in 1999, surviving efforts to abandon it.

To see other New Deal projects in Rhode Island, click here.

Stowe Mountain Resort

Stowe Mountain Resort.

Vermont’s New Deal history – in fact, Vermont’s history – can’t be told without state forester Perry Merrill. When the Civilian Conservation Corps started up in the 1930s, few states were prepared with projects. Merrill had the foresight to draw up a long list. He had already led long-range conservation, flood control and forest management projects following the Great Vermont Flood of 1927.

Vermont was originally scheduled to get four CCC camps. Merrill wrangled 30 camps from Washington, with nearly 41,000 men working in them from 1933-42. CCC crews planted more than a million trees, built dams and cleared more than 100 miles of roads.

Merrill had seen ski areas built in Scandinavia and understood how they provided jobs and recreation. On his list of projects were ski trails on Mount Mansfield. The CCC boys built the Ski Master, the Overland, the Perry Merrill, and Lord, the S-53, and the Nose Dive.

They also made a large parking lot for several hundred cars. In 1940, state officials signed a lease with the Mount Mansfield Company to build a ski lift up Mount Mansfield.

Today, that CCC project is the Stowe Mountain Resort — the premiere ski resort East of the Mississippi.

Photos: McCoy Stadium scoreboard, By Giants27 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16035253.

7 comments 567 views

Hugh Manity, Depression-Era Love Cult Leader, Caught in the Garish Grip of the Law

Boston’s own love-cult leader, Dr. Hugh Manity, gave New England’s newspapers plenty of fun in 1933 when he was arrested in his Cathedral of Cosmos for practicing medicine without a license.

Hugh Manity. Photo courtesy Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

“Cosmical harmony becomes discord upon arrival of state police,” announced the Boston Globe on March 25, 1933.

Manity followed a long New England tradition of crackpots and visionaries. That tradition included the Live Forevers, who believed the dead could be brought back to life, and the Millerites, who believed everyone was going to die on Oct. 22, 1844. (They were wrong.)

Hugh Manity led a cult from a four-story building in Boston’s Back Bay. There he intrigued a “certain coterie of matrons” as well as servant girls and the police. He made the mistake of spurning one of his female followers.

Becoming Hugh Manity

He had changed his name from William Shanahan, “for business reasons,” he told a judge in 1924. His business? Conducting “electro-medical baths” in Lynn, Mass. That business apparently was destroyed by a fire in 1925.

He also offered treatment in “egoatrics.” He called it a new science of personal magnetism to heal the body, regenerate the nerves, renew youth and make dreams come true. His fee ranged from 50 cents to $5.00.

At the time of his arrest he was 43 years old with “definitely mystical mannerisms,” according to the Boston Globe. He told the newspaper he formed the First Universal Humanitarian Society in 1915 after he cured himself from illness in the California mountains.

By 1933, he attracted enough followers to rent a large building in Brighton for $100 a month. Signs behind the plate glass window at street level proclaimed “a new era in atomic vibration based on rhythmic cosmos, teaching you how to vibrate in unison with infinity.”

He described his First Universalist Humanitarian Society as a nondenominational spiritual movement dedicated to self-improvement. “It is not a charm school; it is based on cosmic love and the exact sciences,” he said.

Manity said he lived at the YMCA and lived on a $7-a-week salary. He paid $5.50 for his room and $1.50 for his one meal a day.

Boston YMCA Administration Building, 1914

He Done Her Wrong

Manity told reporters his arrest resulted from a vengeful employee he refused to marry. She had wanted to run away with him to an island paradise. “I saw her and one of her friends standing across the street laughing at me when the police led me from the cathedral under arrest on Friday,” he told a reporter. He also said he “always tried to be good.”

Released on bail, he then returned to his Cathedral of Cosmos. There newspaper reporters poked fun at him for conducting a service for 12 people with an invisible choir (presumably a recording) in the background. A soft amber light shone on the cult leader. Manity asked his devoted followers not to call him doctor because he didn’t want any more trouble with the state police.

A month later, Municipal Court Chief Justice Wilfred Bolster acquitted Hugh Manity of practicing medicine without a license.

At his hearing, Hugh Manity said he knew nothing about medicine, but he did know something about harmonic healing. “Thereupon, he demonstrated a thyroid treatment by rubbing his neck,” reported the Boston Globe.

The Nashua Telegraph on March 28, 1933, then wrote a tongue-in-cheek defense of the cult leader. The newspaper argued he was charging too little for his services to humanity.

“The high back chair with the paraphernalia like a throne, the pillars inscribed love and truth, the atmosphere of the interior of the cathedral, are worth more, for Boston’s self improvement seeking servant girls and wealthy matrons,” editorialized the Telegraph. The newspaper objected to the “garish grip of the law” seizing Manity, all because of the complaint of “at least one dissatisfied customer.”

This story updated in 2022.

0 comment 748 views

Newer Posts

Older Posts